How Does Doctor Pharmaceutical Dispensing Work?
The modern pharmacy system relies on the trio of the patient, doctor, and pharmacist. The doctor diagnoses the patient and provides a prescription, which the pharmacist reviews and fulfills. The extra check allows the pharmacist to mitigate medication errors and reduce the chance of accidental contraindication, for example.
But there are drawbacks to this system, especially when the medication can be hard to come by, is heavily regulated, or when time is of the essence.
There’s little to no way for the doctor to ensure that their patient has gotten the medication they need. Many patients simply don’t fill or refill their prescriptions – sometimes due to rising drug costs and sometimes due to a lack of time or motivation to continue treatment.
Doctor pharmaceutical dispensing focuses the issue on the doctor-patient relationship by providing medication at the point of care through a dispensing program or from a pharmaceutical source. For patients with prostate cancer, the benefits of being able to buy your treatment from your doctor are myriad.
For one, it completely eliminates the time spent commuting between the clinic and the pharmacy. Secondly, it eliminates the waiting time. Third, it allows patients to communicate their worries and issues with their doctors, including financial considerations, treatment limitations, questions about dosage and usage, and other matters that might get in the way of effective treatment and a good outcome. And lastly, with an in-house pharmacy or dispensing program, the task of keeping up with refills is no longer entirely up to the patient, further reducing the risk of medication non-adherence.
Treatment Non-adherence
Treatment non-adherence is a major ongoing issue in the identification and treatment of many illnesses. Reducing the barriers to care and helping improve patient convenience can help reduce non-adherence and build better patient-clinician relationships.
The Value of Patient Convenience
The value proposition of increased convenience should not be ignored, either. Outside of the profit motive, doctors should see the benefit of providing the community with an additional choice, as well as value in the form of time saved and stress eliminated. Research shows that patients value convenience as much as they value care, if not even more so.
The Challenges of Doctor Pharmaceutical Dispensing
Dispensing can massively improve your clinic’s quality of care, reduce treatment non-adherence, and improve patient outcomes. Furthermore, you will be providing patients with a great value proposition in the form of convenience, safety, in-depth doctor-patient education, and the promise of immediate care rather than the uncertainty of waiting for a specialty pharmacy to fill their prescriptions.
However, there are multiple challenges involved in beginning to successfully distribute medications to patients. First, there are legal requirements. Nearly every state handles clinic drug dispensing differently, and you will often need approval from the local Board of Pharmacy before your practice can begin dispensing more than an emergency amount of prescription drugs to patients.
Secondly, in addition to registration, there are a lot of logistics to handle. Sourcing prepackaged medications, storing them safely, managing your incoming and outgoing inventory, keeping track of patient prescriptions, scheduling follow-ups, reducing medication errors, proper label printing, offering patient education, and much, much more.
It may be wise to partner up. Proficient Rx specializes in helping physicians, and larger clinics begin distributing medication from the comfort of their offices.
Proficient Rx sources prescription medication directly from the drug manufacturers and repackages medications on a per-order basis at a state-of-the-art facility, so clinics can stock up with exactly what they need in the dosages they prefer – without having to worry about drug shelf life or lower quality medication.
In addition to providing a full range of generic and branded prescription medications, Proficient Rx also helps clinics get started in managing their own doctor pharmaceutical dispensing solution via a simple-to-use and safe web-based dispensing platform.
Our turnkey dispensing platform allows clinics to view and manage their drug inventories, print labels, place orders, and sort patient information for follow-ups and contraindications. A reliable partner is an important first step towards expanding your clinic’s capabilities and allowing you to fully serve your community and your patients.